Cold Bone Canyon
by amaleka
Summary: 7 years after a tragedy sends Veronica fleeing Neptune and it's ghosts, a mystery brings her home to find trouble 'brewing'. She also finds that her feelings for an old love aren't as buried as she had thought. VeronicaLogan, ensemble. R&R, please.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer- I do not own the characters herein, but I do occasionally like to take them from Rob Thomas' toy box and allow them to participate in some minor adventures that my mind frequently conjures up.

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Part 1

'_It's almost funny, in a morbid and perverse kind of way. My best friend dies- struck down (literally- on the head, with an ashtray) by a psychopathic celebrity after she threatens to out the illegal and illicit sexual relationship they had engaged in- and I gain a purpose in life. 'Discover Lilly's killer and destroy him or her utterly and completely' I think was how it went in my head. Of course, this is Neptune. Things **never** go according to plan_.'

Too strong wind buffeted across the courtyard, whipping Veronica's long hair in all directions. A fly-away strand insinuated itself into her mouth and she tugged absently at it, looking around in some confusion.

'_I found Lilly's killer, of course- said psychopathic-celebrity-statutory rapist; also the father of Lilly's then boyfriend, Logan Echolls. What I didn't count on was almost being killed in the process. That was unexpected. _

_Of course, so was falling in love with the aforementioned son.' _

Her eyes lit on a small ornate sign that sat atop an equally ornate doorway. The sign read "Hester's Remedies- Mystic Cures For All That Ails". Coupled with the alley she'd had to traverse to find the shop, and the stormy weather that was currently hitting Neptune like a vengeful demon, Veronica felt as if she'd just walked straight into a Harry Potter book. Still, she had found the place. With a small smile that bespoke conquest, Veronica walked purposefully towards the door. She raised her hand to knock.

'_Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Veronica Mars. I catch the bad guys.'_

The door opened, revealing a small woman of indeterminate age. Her graying hair was held inadequately by a similarly graying handkerchief. Her eyes were small, beady, and bright. They peered at Veronica with intense suspicion. Her hands were gnarled, but strong looking, with knobby knuckles. They held the butt of a rifle snug against her shoulder. The barrel was pointed unwaveringly at Veronica.

Veronica's eyes went wide.

'_Damn._

_Okay, maybe I should have said 'the bad guys catch me'._

Veronica put her hands in the air, gave an uncertain smile, and stepped backwards. Unfortunately, her progress was considerably hampered by the press of a small round object into her back, mid-spine. She dropped her hands, and smiled sheepishly.

"Would you believe…trick or treat?"

Her only answer was a rough push from behind.

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Darkness pushed in at Veronica from all angles, suffocatingly dense, its very depth exuding a sinister air that was almost tangible. Her fingers strained, pulling against coarse rope; so, her wrists were bound. The concrete floor beneath her cheek felt gritty, grimy. A stale odor permeated the air, forcing its way into her nose, coating her tongue and cheeks when she, awake all at once, gasped in a shuddering breath.

Her arms trembled as she tried to maneuver them- using her right elbow as a clumsy sort of leverage, moving slowly and painfully into something resembling a kneeling position. A low keening echoed softly throughout the room and it took Veronica several moments to realize it was coming from her own mouth. She pressed her lips together determinedly and rocked back on her toes, using the momentum to force herself upward, into an upright position.

Her jacket caught and dragged against a coarse surface. Exhausted and terrified, Veronica sagged against it, breathing heavily and raggedly. Her temple throbbed; apparently she'd been struck. Her face felt swollen and lumpy, wrong somehow. Concentrating through the pain, because she was aware that it was most likely the least of her worries, Veronica twisted her wrists within their confines and managed to ghost her knuckles exploratorily over the surface upon which she rested. Rough, damp, chill, stone- a wall. She backed up against it, placing the sensitive pads of her fingers against the granite. Moving one foot after the other, she followed the wall, ignoring the pain in her head, driving the fear down into herself as far as it would go.

It was so dark.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Veronica's fingers met splintered wood. She pushed against it with her shoulder, met with unwavering resistance. She put her back once again against the wall and her fingers grasped blindly as, moving back and forth across the expanse of timber, knees bending and straightening at intervals, she searched for something resembling any sort of handle.

Her fingers closed over cold iron. She pulled, to no avail. A sob broke through her lips, unheeded. Straining forward on her toes she tried again, pulling the big door inwards with whatever strength she could muster. It budged not one bit. Fingers fumbling, Veronica felt for a latch of some kind. She met with nothing. The door was no doubt locked from the outside, which made every kind of sense, as no one in their right minds would kidnap someone and then throw them into a room they could escape quite easily from.

'_Way to think on your toes, Mars.'_

Veronica sighed and turned, leaning defeatedly against the coarse wooden door. Her face stung; had she been crying? It felt as if salt had encountered long scratches on her cheeks. When the hell had she been scratched? With a long, wet and dejected sniff, Veronica Mars decided it was decidedly best not to ask.

'_Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes: the sordid affair between my best friend, Lilly, and the father of her adoring boyfriend. Oh, and we shouldn't forget the subsequent murder **of** said best friend, and, following directly, one Veronica Mars' quest for the truth. And also, yes, revenge._

_Of course, when Aaron Echolls **was** finally destroyed, it wasn't by my hand. It was Duncan Kane, my ex-boyfriend and, more importantly, Lilly's brother. At least, I think it was. I haven't exactly spoken to him in a while.'_

With another sigh, Veronica let her head tilt back against the wall, feeling strands of her hair become entangled with the splintered timber and caring not at all. What were a few follicles ripped from her scalp compared to the slow but persistent throb that encompassed her entire head?

She let her eyes drift closed as she furiously racked her brain for some other way to vacate her little prison. With just a sliver remaining between her eyelids, almost like an eclipse, Veronica saw something that made both eyes shoot wide open.

A small dusty window sat high on the stone wall, staring guilelessly back at her. A mere residue of light filtered halfheartedly through its filthy panes. Veronica grinned at it as relief so strong it nearly made her knees buckle coursed through her body.

She might just be able to get herself out of this yet.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to any of these characters. I am not, however, profiting monetarily, or intending any disrespect, in their use.

Part 2

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Logan Echolls hated small talk. It wasn't that he wasn't good at it; on the contrary, it was something at which he excelled. After all, he came from a family of actors- appalling actors, maybe, but actors none the less. So the art of making polite conversation hadn't been a difficult one to master. The basis for his dislike was simply this: he couldn't be bothered. Conversing with people about trivialities was made pointless by the fact that he was completely uninterested in most people themselves, which therefore made the things that came from their usually overly garrulous mouths wholly not worth inconveniencing himself over.

In short, small talk was, more often than not, extraordinarily boring. And Logan wasn't one to waste his time with boredom. After all, there were much more entertaining methods of wasting time.

This pursuit, for example, was vastly more enjoyable. Punching people _had _always had something of a cathartic effect on him.

The man he was punching now was big- a lumberjack type, down to the flannel shirt, thick canvas pants, and sturdy boots he wore. He was tough, too, with fists like hams and a face that each blow seemed to glance off of like limp spaghetti.

Of course, none of this mattered. Battered, bloody, and losing, Logan Echolls was enjoying one of the few pursuits left to him that made him feel something that even vaguely resembled alive.

If he was only playing at being a lumberjack, it certainly wasn't evident in the man's arms- they threw punches like sledge-hammers. A closed fist was even now colliding with Logan's face with a wet _thunk_, and not for the first time, if the large gash above his left eyebrow and the purplish bruise coloring his jaw-line were to be believed. Logan went down in a tangle of limbs, but scrambled to his feet again almost immediately, a goading sneer on his lips, and a challenge in his eyes. Lumberjack grinned obligingly, his teeth shining and bloody, and moved in for another assault.

Before he could strike though, Logan feigned a left-handed attack, but moved in with a right-handed punch to the gut. Lumberjack, in the act of dodging the aborted left-hand blow, moved right, which brought his abdomen and Logan's fist together in a powerful collision, knocking the wind from him quite successfully.

It wasn't the first punch of Logan's that had landed, but it was the most effective. Logan grinned triumphantly and hit the man hard in the temple. Lumberjack swayed, staggered, but rallied, coming back from a protective huddle with a knee to Logan's groin.

Logan doubled over, his vision fading in and out, his breath leaving him with an abrupt _whoomph. _Lumberjack turned, preparing to enjoy a celebratory beer, but Logan's breathless but disgusted voice stopped him.

"Wait, wait, wait- you're _done_?" Logan panted a little and returned to as much of an upright position as he could manage. He wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, and then showed the man a scornful sneer. "Gee, after all of the things I said about your 'ma'," he hand-quoted the word, giving it an unclean connotation, "… I really would have expected more. Apparently they don't make white-trash like they used to." He shook his head sadly. Then, slowly and deliberately, "What_ is_ the world coming to when you can't even taunt the inbreds anymore?"

Logan waited for the inevitable explosion. He wasn't disappointed. The man gave a roar and hurled himself towards him like a torpedo with a homing device. It took half of the bar to pull the two men apart, and that was only when it was obvious that one of the fighters wouldn't likely be walking away if the fight was allowed to continue. And even then, Logan thought that the patrons of the bar wouldn't mourn him overly- they only held a mutual aversion to the certain arrival of the police, who were never well received in this part of town, should the lumberjack be allowed to act on the murder in his eyes.

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Attempting to escape from a darkened cellar with ones hands tied was, as Veronica Mars was discovering, not an easy task. There was blood in her eyes from the injury on her head, her wrists were torn and abraded, as were her arms and hands, from traveling to and fro along the rough stone wall. Her legs were bruised, especially about the knees; she had been forced to utilize them as much as possible to move any and everything she could find that seemed at least semi-solid into a pile under the window. Stacking things without the use of one's hands was a pursuit Veronica never wished to attempt again. She'd found herself lying on her back and pushing boxes and crates up on top of one another a few times, and didn't even want to imagine the kind of picture she made.

Of course, her appearance was the least of her worries at the moment.

'_Blood, dirt, cement dust, rock fragments… I've seen it all tonight. I've been held at gunpoint, struck, and locked away in the dark. I probably look like something that crawled out of a sewer. But you know what? I don't care. Right now the only thing that carries any weight with me is getting out of here alive, and if I have to resemble a sewer rat doing yoga to do it? So be it. I'll do it gladly.' _

Suddenly, a crate fell off of the pile, striking Veronica on the cheek. She cried out, ducking her head and stepping back quickly- too quickly. Her feet tangled in another crate and she fell backwards, landing hard on her shoulder. Veronica felt a new flow of blood stream down her cheek, gagged as it seeped into her mouth. Her shoulder throbbed where it had come in rough contact with the ground.

She lay still for several moments, breathing hard. With considerable effort, she rolled onto her knees and clambered upwards to her feet once again, gasping sharply as the pain flooded from her shoulder and down her arm.

'_Did I say gladly? I take it back. This entire situation has so little glad in it, I'd go so far as to call it 'gladless'. It is completely **lacking** in glad. Which is unfortunate, because if there is anything my life needs right now, it's a little bit of glad.'_

Finally the makeshift stairway was assembled. Veronica wobbled onto the first crate, scraping her shins on the way and cursing the hot rush of tears that sprung to her eyes at the contact. She scrambled up the second and third crates, not giving herself time to consider the fall she could take if she missed her footing or jostled the pile too badly. Finally, out of breath and with sweat stinging the myriad array of cuts and scrapes that adorned her face, arms, and hands, Veronica came face to face with a filthy pane of glass, held firmly in place with a simple sash lock. She used her teeth to pull around the swivel catch and nudged the window open with her head, the single pane raising high enough to admit her body, although it proved a tight squeeze. She slithered and wiggled her way through the window, biting her lip as her shoulder bumped into the window frame, sending lightning flashes of agony coursing through her arm. The room she'd occupied proved to be a basement; Veronica's upper body twisted and squirmed its way onto soft grass as she emerged from her confines. She rested for a moment, taking in the night air and the aroma of fresh grass through her nose, breathing deeply and evenly as she tried to amass the energy to move the rest of her body, snakelike, through the window. The thought of her captors finding her as she was, half in, half out of the window, gave her ample impetus to wiggle her way completely through the window. Then she struggled to her feet and ran with all of her might.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer- The world of Veronica Mars is not mine. I own neither the characters or the place, but I do hope that TPTB (Rob Thomas, The CW, etc) won't mind me borrowing both for this little adventure.

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Logan had been forcefully ejected from two more bars, having accomplished only the whetting of his appetite in the first. His hunger for violence- for anything that stung, ached, throbbed, or that merely made him feel anything apart from the fathoms deep emptiness that was a constant companion- was a voracious one, a bottomless pit that alcohol only exacerbated.

He was now ensconced in a liquor induced languor; one which propped his eyes at half-mast; one which cast this dingy, smelly bar in a blurry but warm glow. His legs occupied the table at which he sat, crossed carelessly at the ankle. His chair was tipped back precariously, yet he sat with an odd kind of grace that only the remarkably drunk can accomplish. He was contemplating his half empty pint glass with something akin to camaraderie, and also contemplating the enjoyable nature of being utterly undisturbed. This was not to say that he would begrudge anyone a round or two of acting as his personal punching bag, _if_ they came looking. But it was such a unique experience, not being surrounded by scandal-mongers- all drooling after the latest chapter in the Logan Echolls saga- that he'd felt that it deserved a little moment of silence to commemorate it. Of course, the moment had turned into two, and now he was pretty sure he'd been sitting here staring into the remains of his beer for a good twenty minutes. His drunkenness had taken a maudlin turn, and in his mind, where there was maudlin, there was also Veronica Mars. The goddamn love of his life.

A life from which she was very conspicuously absent.

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It was her voice, strangely, that interrupted him from his thoughts of her. At first, he thought he was merely imagining it; that he was projecting his angst into something tangible, or at least, audible. His eyes, however, belied this theory. She stood facing the bar, half hidden behind beer-gummed tables and a pool-table that had seen better days. Her hair fell in a tangled mess down her back. She held her shoulders stiffly, her hands behind her back, as if she was hiding something from the bartender. It was likely something that would ruin the guy's life. Veronica was tricky like that.

Logan let the front legs of his chair hit the ground with a _thud _and crossed his arms over his chest. His eyebrows arched in an affectation of surprise, his mouth thinned and sneered. "Look, everyone, it's Veronica Mars," he remarked to no one in particular.

Her shoulders stiffened all the more as his voice reached her. She seemed reluctant to turn, in that she _didn't. _She stared straight ahead, and repeated her query of the bartender. This time Logan caught the words: _"Please, I need a phone. It's an emergency."_

He craned his head, straining to see what she had hidden behind her back. Maybe she'd followed daddy's footsteps; maybe she was a cop now, and it was a warrant in her hands. Or maybe it was a gun… nah, Veronica had even more reasons to hate guns now than she had ever had. Her taser, perhaps, or some kind of evidence to a crime that she was going to pin on the poor, sad, bastard. And he probably wasn't even guilty. It wouldn't be the first time Veronica had made _that _mistake.

Unfortunately a high-backed chair stood in his way, which impeded not only his gaze, but also his quest to pin some sort of nefarious, life-altering deed on the girl he'd loved and lost.

Logan took a sudsy gulp out of the mug in his hands and smiled at Veronica's back like a shark. "Tell me, Veronica," he said conversationally, "what foul beast has dragged you back to Neptune? It must have been a tough one, considering…" he let the statement trail off suggestively.

Veronica's head turned ever so slightly, her hair falling in a fine layer, hiding her expression; just another veil to add to all of the others. "Leave me alone, Logan."

The bartender: "Did _he_ do this to you?"

Veronica shook her head, "No."

Logan put his elbows on the table and leaned forward, "Did I do _what_ now?"

The bartender looked from Veronica to him, his expression hard. Veronica shook her head again, "Really, it wasn't him. Now, please, could I use a phone? And a knife, maybe?"

"A knife, V? Really? I mean, I know you hate me- you couldn't have made that clearer if you Windex-ed it- but murder?" Logan looked around at the bar, "That's more than mere hatred, ladies and gentlemen."

She turned then, giving him a clear look at her battered face. Logan's breath drew in sharply, his expression shifting from mockery to concern in the span of a heartbeat. "Jesus Christ, Veronica. What happened to you?"

She shrugged, and flinched, as if the movement was painful. "It's just the job, Logan."

Logan stood and moved towards her, his face grim. "Fuck, Veronica, you're a P.I., not a boxer." He cupped her chin in his hand and tipped her head back, looking closely at her injuries. "We'll have to clean this blood up to see how bad it really is." He snapped his fingers at the bartender impatiently, "I need a washcloth, and warm water."

"And a knife," Veronica reiterated. "My hands have been tied for so long they don't even hurt anymore. Which I'm pretty sure is a bad thing."

Logan swore and turned her around, his eyes narrowing as they took in her slim hands scraped raw and bleeding, held captive by tight loops of coarse rope. "Who the fuck did this?"

"Witches. Or maybe warlocks. Whoever was behind me could have been male or female." She paused. "Male witches are called warlocks, right?"

Logan was completely flummoxed. "What are you talking about?"

"I was investigating. At a magic shop."

The bartender set a bowl of steaming water and a bar towel on the counter. Beside these he placed a very large knife. Veronica took one look at this monstrosity and told Logan, "I still carry a pocket-knife." She turned her body slightly. "Back pocket."

"There are magic shops in Neptune?" Logan asked, fishing for the knife. "I thought that was a strictly Sunnydalian type of establishment."

"You'd be surprised what the seedier parts of Neptune have to offer." Veronica took a look at her surroundings as he sawed at her bonds. "…Or maybe you wouldn't. What are you doing here, Logan?"

"Slumming." He answered promptly.

Veronica nodded knowingly. "Black eyes and broken noses go over a little better over here, huh?"

He nodded. "Plus, poor people don't mind getting their hands dirty. They give me more of a challenge." The rope separated and fell from Veronica's wrists. Logan took her hands and chafed them rapidly. "I've heard this part hurts." He said. "The blood flow returning, and all that."

Veronica cringed as the tingles hit, biting her lip as they progressed into stabbing pain. She eyed Logan speculatively as he worked the blood back into her hands, his face intent. "You think I hate you?"

He looked up quickly, with dark eyes. "Don't you?"

"No."

This monosyllabic response earned a bitter laugh. "Well, you've got a rotten way of showing it."

She said nothing, merely looking at her hands in his with an unreadable look on her face.

"So, who were you gonna call?" Logan asked suddenly.

Veronica looked up, confused. "Am I supposed to yell 'Ghost Busters' here? Because I'm not really feeling that theatric."

Logan gestured towards the bartender, "Earlier, when you asked for a phone, who were you planning to call?"

"I'm not really sure." Veronica said slowly. "Lamb, I guess."

"But not me."

"Logan…" she trailed off helplessly, looking anywhere but at him.

He flinched slightly, "Whatever, Veronica. It's fine." He turned, and busied himself with wetting the washcloth. "Maybe you don't hate me, but that doesn't mean you have to like me, right?"

"Logan, it's been seven years. Honestly, what would you have done if I _had _called you?"

"I would have yelled at you, and called you a heartless bitch. I might have even demanded some fucking answers. Then I would have hauled ass to come help you, like I always do." He wiped some of the blood from her forehead, peering at her lacerated scalp. "On that note, I'm taking you to the emergency room. You need stitches."

Veronica pulled a wry face. "I wonder if any of the old nurses still work there? It'll be like a family reunion."

Logan placed his hands together before his face and grinned at her evilly from behind them. "Maybe there'll even be cake."


End file.
